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Braves Talk - Pessimism is hard to deal with

Bill Shanks talks more about the calendar MLB must follow to get a deal done

Major League Baseball owners and players have only a few weeks to save the season.

A few weeks ago, I thought that it might be okay if they schedule game seven of a 2020 World Series on December 31, 2020, just to get the season in before the calendar flips to the next year. Then they could back up the schedule, and if they needed to start in September to have a three-month regular season, so be it.

But signs have MLB not wanting that. They want to try and have the regular season finish in late-September or early-October and then the playoffs can only bleed a bit into November. They obviously don’t have any interest in having the postseason last until Thanksgiving.

It is perhaps rooted in a concern that there may be a round two recurrence of the Covid-19 virus in the early fall. If they started the season and got plenty of games in, and then there was a second outbreak of the virus, would they just stop the season or could they manage through it?

Either way, MLB owners and players have about two weeks to figure this mess out. There is a lot to decide, and it can’t happen overnight. But if they fight and this lingers, any chance of starting a season in early-July will be slim.

Listen to The Bill Shanks Show weekdays at 3:00 p.m. ET on Middle Georgia’s ESPN. You can listen online at TheSuperStations.com. Follow Bill on Twitter at @billshanks and you can email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.